For nearly a decade (nine years come June) the Left has portrayed Donald Trump as Adolf Hitler. This has led to the outrageous, over-the-top political and judicial subversion of a once functioning constitutional republic. From the egregious decision of the Colorado courts to the outright exploitation of a manufactured pandemic to manipulate an election to the willing participation of the FBI to harass the elected president, the system has gone to great lengths to kill the Trump movement. They have done so because they believe in their own rhetoric. The fact is, Trump and Hitler share much in common. The differences between the two, however, make the former hardly the latter.
The reasons that the Trump-Hitler comparison works is not because the Left is right about Trump. Rather, the American political Right is wrong about Hitler. Their myopic understanding of the movement that ultimately led to Hitler clouds their historical understanding of the man of 1930s Germany, and even the man of 2020s America.
Like Trump, Hitler was an outgrowth of a hurting middle class that recently lost a war and, more importantly, lost its moral bearings to Far Left radical subversives. The ascendancy of a Marxist ruling class and institutions was just as apparent to those paying attention in 1932 as those paying attention in 2016. Finally, just as the political tyranny of transgenderism and homosexuality raged through schools throughout Germany in 1932, the same was seen in 2016. The orthodoxy of leftwing ideologies was reinforced by a group calling itself the “antifa” in 1931 and 2015.
Much of the same complaints voiced by Trump are identical to those by Hitler. The lack of national pride… the elite vs working class divide… the border invasion of illegal aliens… all of these messages are straight out of Mein Kampf. In that regard, the Left is correct when they point out that the messaging of Trump and Hitler are similar. Even the economic policies of Trump and Hitler shared a lot of cross pollination.
Despite the often-misunderstood citation of the term “socialist” in the name National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), the economic policies were anything but socialist. A tax rate under 15%, a decentralized economic system that put power in the hands of the German states, and the privatization of national industries are all from the Trump playbook. In fact, the German use of socialist in 1932 – economic safety nets like social security – had more stringent conditions applied to their use, such as a requirement for sobriety and a workfare condition (e.g., sweeping the streets to receive unemployment payments). Again, these are policies that Hitler employed, and Trump endorsed decades later.
The key difference between Trump and Hitler is one of both capacity and an appreciation for the realities of their respective political environments. Trump was and still is surrounded by sycophants with very little actual capacity to run a nation-state. Hitler, by contrast, spent five years working on a shadow government of likeminded individuals capable of sliding into power and immediately making changes.
Additionally, unlike the United States – within which a long march through the institutions by Marxists dates back to at least the 1960s – Germany only had a decade of widespread Marxist inculcation. Consequently, when the NSDAP slid into power, it was able to flip the script faster. Whomever leads a populist revolt in the U.S. will need to be very cautious externally while secretly building a shadow government until he is elected – almost an impossible task due to the nature of American politics.
Finally, and most importantly, Hitler understood the true nature of Nationalism. Trump does not understand the term because he is an American. American Nationalism is a contradictory term. The United States is not a nation. It is a union of quasi-independent states and an amalgamation of races and ethnicities that often contradict each other. The American experiment attempts to redefine Nationalism by transcending genetic and cultural distinctions through codified documents like the Bill of Rights – assuming we all appreciate the same Enlightenment ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries. Recent racial grievances suggest otherwise.
The fact is, one cannot make the United States a country and racial-less nation. By definition, nation means a unified cultural and genetic construct often cemented by a common language. Hitler enjoyed the luxury of a German people. Despite regional idiosyncrasies (e.g., Prussian vs Bavarian), German Nationalism was an ingrained identity dating back to Roman times, even when the principalities were divided.
Trump’s desire to ignore racial realities undermines his ability to be a Nationalist. It is the string that pulls the garment apart. In this regard, the Left is wrong about Trump – he is no Hitler. In this regard, the Right is wrong about Trump – he is, unfortunately, no Hitler.
The son of a recent Irish immigrant and another with roots to Virginia since 1670. I love both my Irish and Southern Nations with a passion. Florida will always be my country. Dissident support here: Padraig Martin is Dixie on the Rocks (buymeacoffee.com)
I commend you for broaching a thought-provoking subject. That said, I’m thinking Trump really has more in common with Churchill. He ‘says’ many things with which we’d agree, but I think he’s insincere and just surfing the wave of middle class discontent for where it may take him politically.
A prohibitively-priced book that you and many of our readers may really like is a series of essays by Germans spanning the years 1870-1940. Germany wrestled with Marxist and Enlightenment doctrines for many years before 1933.
https://www.amazon.com/Europa-German-Conservative-Foreign-1870-1940/dp/0761821376
Thanks again for the stimulating article!
Hello German Confederate.
I was meaning to ask you why Hitler left Austria for Germany and I just happened to answer my own question with this book I just bought, ‘Twilight of the Hapsburgs’ the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zab Zeman 1971.
‘Centuries of absolutist government working on a temperament compounded of Celtic versatility, South German slackness, and Slav sensuousness, have—thanks to the constant effort of the authorities to turn attention away from public affairs and towards amusement—ended by producing a population of dilettanti disposed to take nothing seriously except the present pleasure. The result is depressing to those not born to the Viennese manner or capable of assimilating the Viennese standpointlessness’
Hermann Bahr, himself a citizen of Vienna, complained that ‘men do not lack talent but talent lacks men’. Every man hides his manliness…Hence the terror of the Viennese when a real man appears among them. They find him uncanny and want to hide from him—unless they be in a theatre. On the stage they know it will be over in three hours. Adolf Hitler, who spent five years in Vienna as a young man before the First World War, came to detest it not only because it witnessed his failure and privation but also because it was a cosmopolitan town, a symbol of the Empire, where the Germans and Czechs, the Jews and the poles, the Magyars, and the South Slavs lived together, if not always in harmony, at least under the rule of law.
I thought I’d share that with you.
Great book so far.
God Bless and Happy New Year to all.
Thanks Outside Looking In. I really like the excerpt. The bourgeoisie, of which Hitler and the NSDAP complained, is with us today in all the normiecons selling out theirs and our freedom to the globalists. They’ll find — as did Stauffenburg, Canaris and the Abwehr with the All-Lies — that once they’ve outlived their usefulness to the globalists, they’ll meet a similar fate.
Very good. So now what? How can we create a southern nation? I love the idea of building a shadow gov’t and “sliding them in.” We better hurry though …
https://banned.video/watch?id=658f6c96be3fe4c20c458fd1
Spoiler alert, Trump is merely playing the role assigned to him. He is not leading any movement, rather he’s been thrusted out there to dupe the masses into believing we have a choice. Kabuki Theater at its finest. Extremely sad that so few people see through this charade. Even sadder that so few on this site see through it and continue to get played. I’m not sure how his four years in office don’t open people’s eyes to this sad reality. Let’s not descend to the level of the absolute morons that inhabit The Conservative Treehouse site.
That’s why I mentioned Churchill as a more apt comparison. He knew the truth, but sold his soul for the perquisites. Hitler lived for and died with the German people he loved.
I concur, your comparison is very accurate. It’s an insult to Hitler for Trump to be compared to him. Funny how the Trumptards have this so conflated. I do have to hand it to the folks in charge. Their foisting of Trump onto the scene worked out exactly as they had hoped. Actually, I’m sure much better than they hoped. Useful idiots on both “sides” acting and reacting exactly how they drew it up. Vince McMahon must be so proud of his blueprint being used so effectively.
I agree with German Confederate, I cringe when I see the Nationalist being led by Trump, I fear he is a Judas goat.
Isn’t it the Nationalist in the United States that resemble the Nationalism that Hitler inspired in Germany that the judeo capitalist fear so much?
Trump to me is the last pop culture icon hypnotizing the right.
He pardoned some hardcore Jews, celebrates homosexuality, militarized the harmacutical companies, Draft dodger, on and on I could go. The opposite of A.H.
Europe suffered the same type of fate, the new enlightenment rulers were forced to put proxy Catholic Kings back into power to pacify the population. France, Spain and Portugal come to mind, even in Mexico they had to do that!
The comparison with Hitler and Trump that is frightening, is how the Jews feared that killing Hitler wasn’t enough to extinguish Nationalism, they had to kill the whole German population that Loved Hitler to their souls. Hitler turned the German race into a religion and almost beat the Jews at their own game, instead we have this (up to date 422 years) war for the global market pushed by Gods chosen merchants.
I love it,you’re writing about my favorite man in all history.Trump is always licking Jew boots while the Fuhrer sent the children of the Devil into a cowardly retreat.I fear all that was good will never be recreated again on Earth but it surely will in Heaven.We will have the old South and the Third Reich and Rhodesia and Boer South Africa and all our great heroes known and unknown.It will be wonderful and great and all the praise will be to the Lord God for giving us life and our great kinfolk.But if God wants it to happen for us here then it will.His will be done.I have not one ounce of trust in Trump or the GOP Jew lapdogs,to me they are worst than the open opposition because they are here only to fool us and stab us from behind.But this site and its people are a reason for hope and God sees that.Christ is all and without Him we perish.America is racial filth and I wouldn’t mind seeing it wiped out.But my heart hurts for the innocent and good who deserve none of what has been done to us by the Jew demons going on centuries not decades.Everyone take heart and never give in or lose faith.
I wish.